Myanmar's 800-kilometre gas pipeline from the western coast to the Chinese border has been completed on schedule, officials said Monday. The Chinese-built, 2.5-billion-dollar project comprises two pipelines across central Myanmar. "The Myanmar-China natural gas pipeline has been finished and is ready for trial operations," an official of the state-owned oil and gas company said.
Deliveries of gas from offshore reserves in the Bay of Bengal are scheduled to begin on July 1, said the official who asked to remain anonymous. A parallel oil pipeline to Yunnan in southern China is 97 per cent complete and scheduled to start flowing in September or October, the official said. Myanmar formed a joint venture with China National Petroleum Corporation to build the pipelines in March 2009. The gas comes from the offshore Shwe Gas project, a joint venture between South Korean firm Daewoo International, ONGC Videsh Ltd of India, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, GAIL Ltd of India and Korea Gas Corp.